Truth is, “cloud” is an annoying buzzword. Most of the time, when people say “in the cloud,” they mean “online” or “on the Internet”—terms that have served us perfectly well for years.
In any case, you can save your files online, into an online “hard drive” called iCloud Drive. The advantage here is that your files are now available for opening or editing from any computer or gadget you use, including iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches.
iCloud Drive is like a magic folder. In the Finder, it’s represented by an iCloud Drive icon (
) in the Sidebar of every window.
Whatever you put into it appears, almost instantly, in the iCloud Drive folder on all your other machines: Macs, iPhones, iPads, and even Windows PCs. In fact, your files will even be available at iCloud.com, so you can grab them even when you’re stranded on a desert island with nothing but somebody else’s computer. (If this concept reminds you of the popular free program Dropbox, then you’re very wise.) Figure 6-26 shows the idea.
This is an incredibly useful feature. No more emailing files to yourself. No more carrying things around on a flash drive. After working on some document at the office, you can go home and resume from right where you stopped; the same file is waiting for you, exactly as you left it.
iCloud Drive also makes a gloriously simple, effective backup disk. Anything you drag into this “folder” is instantly copied to all your devices and computers. And, as you know, the more copies that exist of something (and in the more locations), the better your backup. Even if your main Mac is stolen or burned to aluminum dust, your iCloud Drive files are safe.
Your drive holds 5 gigabytes of files for free. You can pay extra for more space: $1 a month for 50 gigs, $3 a month for 200 gigs, $10 for 1 terabyte (1,000 gigs), or $20 a month for 2 terabytes.
On the Mac, you use the iCloud Drive just as you would a folder or a flash drive. Click its name in the Sidebar to see what’s in there. Drag files into its window to copy them there. Make folders, add files, delete files, rename them—whatever. Any changes you make are reflected on your other Apple (and Windows) gadgets within seconds.
Inside a program, you can choose File→Save in the usual way. When the Save box appears, click iCloud Drive in the Sidebar. Or choose an iCloud Drive folder’s name, if you’ve made one.
Tip
The window shown in Figure 6-26 shows your iCloud Drive documents and lets you open them, even when you’re offline. How? Turns out your Mac stores a secret “local” copy. The changes you make won’t update the online copy until you’re online again, but at least you’re never cut off from your own files.
If the iCloud Drive behaves just like a folder on your Mac, how does it appear on iPhones, iPads, and Windows computers?
Figure 6-26. Left: The iCloud Drive icon appears in the Sidebar of every Finder window and Save/Open dialog box.
On the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch. iCloud Drive is an app in iOS 9 and later. Just open it to see a list of the folders and files on your iCloud Drive (including the Desktop and Documents folders from your Macs).
On another Mac. Click the iCloud Drive icon in the sidebar of any Mac (to which you’ve logged in with your iCloud ID), and there’s your stuff.
On the web. You can pull up iCloud.com, log in, and click the iCloud Drive icon. Presto: a list of the files and folders on your Drive. (Including Desktop and Documents folders, if you’ve turned that on.)
On a Windows PC. Your computer needs Windows 7 or later, and it requires the iCloud control panel. (You can download it from this book’s “Missing CD” page at www.missingmanuals.com.) It does just what you’d expect: It creates an iCloud Drive icon in your File Explorer windows, exactly as on the Mac.
In macOS Sierra, a new, optional feature of iCloud Drive makes everything on your desktop and in your Documents folder accessible everywhere—on every Mac you own, every iOS device, every Windows PC, and even online, at iCloud.com.
If you think about it, those are the two places that most people, most of the time, leave their stuff: on the desktop or in the Documents folder. The point of this feature is that you no longer have to remember to copy some file or folder you’ll need onto the iCloud Drive; if you left it on your desktop or in your Documents folder, it’ll just be there. When you need a file you don’t have with you, you’ll be able to grab it from wherever you are.
Of course, you get only 5 gigabytes of iCloud Drive storage, which is shared by all of iCloud’s features. So to use this system, you’ll almost certainly have to pay for additional storage, month after month.
When you install macOS Sierra, the setup screens invite you to turn on iCloud Desktop & Documents.
If you miss that chance, you can also turn it on at any time:
In System Preferences→iCloud. Next to the first checkbox, iCloud Drive, click Options; in the resulting dialog box, on the Documents tab, turn on Desktop & Documents Folders. (See Figure 6-27, top.)
In
→About This Mac→Storage→Manage→Store in iCloud (Note). Turn on “Store files from Desktop and Documents in iCloud Drive.”
If you don’t have enough iCloud Drive space, you’re cheerfully offered a list of price plans at this moment. The cheapest plan available that will fit your documents is highlighted.
Once that’s all set up, you’ll discover a few alarming changes to your Mac universe:
Everything on your desktop has disappeared. It’s all been swept into a new folder on your desktop called “Desktop - MacBook Air” (or whatever your Mac’s name is).
So why does Sierra create a new Desktop folder bearing your Mac’s name? Because you might turn on this feature on a second Sierra Mac that you own, or even a third. The folder-naming system is designed to separate what’s on the desktop of this Mac from what’s on the desktops of those other Macs. If you have two computers, then, you might see folders on your desktop called Desktop - MacBook Air and Desktop - Kitchen iMac. (Figure 6-27, middle right, shows this effect.)
Middle left: Desktop and Documents are now listed under iCloud Drive. The actual folders have moved, too.
Middle right: You see a separate Desktop folder for each Sierra Mac for which you’ve turned this feature on. (Documents, too.)
Bottom: If you move something from Desktop or Documents into any other folder, you get a warning that you’re actually deleting it from your iCloud Drive (assuming that checkbox is turned on in Finder→Preferences→Advanced).
Figure 6-27. Top: Here’s how you enter the rabbit hole known as iCloud Desktop & Documents.
Of course, if you primarily use only one Mac, the icons you once kept on your desktop are now in a desktop folder that seems to be on your desktop, which seems silly.
Fortunately, there’s nothing to stop you from dragging the contents of “Desktop - MacBook Air” right back onto your actual desktop. The only caution here is that, if you do that on more than one Mac, you wind up with a commingled desktop. All the icons from your laptop desktop and all the icons from your iMac desktop are now on the desktops of both machines. You’ve just duplicated them. And any changes you make—any new icons you save to any desktop—get likewise duplicated to your other Macs.
That may be exactly what you want. Just watch out for disk space.
Everything in your Documents folder disappears, too. All those icons get shunted into a new folder in your Documents folder called “Documents - MacBook Air.”
The real Desktop and Documents folders are no longer in your Home folder. And in the Finder sidebar, they’re no longer listed under the Favorites heading; now they’re listed under iCloud Drive (Figure 6-27, middle left), to remind you that their new home is online, in the iCloud Drive.
You get a warning if you drag something out of Documents or off your desktop. The warning is alarming (Figure 6-27, bottom), but it’s perfectly logical: If you move an icon out of the Documents folder or from your desktop into another folder, you’re removing it from the iCloud Drive. (The iCloud Drive’s only responsibility is to mirror what’s in your Documents and Desktop folders.)
If you turn off iCloud Desktop & Documents, you get an alarming message. It says: “If you continue, documents on your Desktop and in your Documents folder will be visible in iCloud Drive only. No documents will be deleted from iCloud Drive.”
What this means is that the icons on your desktop, and in your Documents folder, will disappear!
OK, be confused, but don’t be hysterical; your files are on your Mac. The message makes it sound like you’ll have to re-download them from iCloud, but that’s not true. They’re already on your Mac—in the iCloud Drive folder.
Turning off iCloud Desktop & Documents leaves only an empty Desktop folder on your desktop, and an empty Documents folder in your Documents folder. If you want to put your files back where they belong, you have to drag them there manually—out of the iCloud Drive folders.